According to recent reports, Elon Musk has mysteriously disabled a feature from Twitter that marketed suicide prevention hotlines and other security tools for users who may be vulnerable.
When users searched for content relating to mental health, HIV, vaccinations, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural catastrophes, or freedom of expression, the #ThereIsHelp feature displayed the contact information for support organisations.
Concerns have been raised over the means by which Twitter can ensure the safety of more vulnerable users on the network as a result of his removal. It is presently unknown why Musk ordered the function to be withdrawn; Reuters has attempted to contact both he and Twitter for comment, but they have not yet gotten a response to their inquiries.
Tweets from the company indicate that the #ThereIsHelp hashtag was first used approximately five years ago and has since been made available in more than thirty nations. This action was taken by numerous social networks as part of a bigger response to the pressure that was being applied by consumer advocacy groups. Twitter stated that it is responsible for ensuring that customers can “access our service and receive support when they need it the most.” This statement was made in one of the company’s blog articles that discussed this feature.
“If this decision is a symbol of a policy change when they no longer take these issues seriously, it is extremely dangerous,” said Alex Goldenberg, lead intelligence analyst at the nonprofit Network Infection Research Institute. “If this decision is a symbol of a policy change when they no longer take these issues seriously, it is extremely dangerous” (via The Guardian). “This goes against [Musk’s] past vows to promote the well-being of children,” the author writes.
Musk has claimed in the past that preventing the representation of child abuse on the platform is the “number one priority.” On the other hand, when Musk first seized control of the site in October, a large number of the staff members who were responsible for content moderation were let go. The fact that racist tweets targeting coloured footballers prior to the Qatar World Cup were reportedly not erased also contributed to this result.
In other news pertaining to Twitter, the social media network recently introduced a new tool that shows users the number of people who have viewed a particular tweet. This function is intended to demonstrate “how much livelier Twitter is than it would seem.” [Citation needed] Musk claims that more than 90 percent of Twitter users simply read messages without liking, commenting on, or sharing them in any other way.
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